Summer 2012 - Trip to NASA

I was really looking forward to taking Luke to NASA this summer.  He is so interested in anything science-related, and thanks to his science teacher, he is really interested in space. 

The rest of the family left Montgomery on Monday, and Jason went to Atlanta for a conference, so Luke and I were on our own.  We went to NASA on Tuesday.  It was about 2 hours from our condo, through yucky Houston traffic.  Luke was a really good sport in the car.

Luke recognized this space robot right away from one of his books about robots.

We went on a tram tour to Mission Control and Rocket Park.  Thankfully, I bought the $1 ponchos before the tour began.  When we came out of Mission Control, it was POURING.

We went into the building that houses the Saturn 5 rocket in pouring rain, and the rain did not let up.  We trudged through 5 inches of rain to get back to the tram, and it took several hours to dry out completely.

 After we got back from the tour, we rode in the flight simulator.  I was the pilot and Luke was the gunner, but Luke kept reaching across and taking the stick from me to make us do barrel rolls and go upside down!  I was nearly sick after that, but he laughed and laughed the entire time.

We left NASA around 4:00, drove home, and had pizza for dinner (for the 2nd night in a row!).  It was a great day, and I loved sharing it with Luke.

The next day, we were supposed to go to the pool...but it rained more!  We stayed in and played inside, made crafts, and watched movies.  Luke built a spaceship out of bottles, cans, cereal boxes, and anything he could find and use!  

Summer 2012 - Post 2

We were all excited to get to Coppell on June 21.  It was so good to get home!  The three of us pretty much stayed put at Mom and Dad's as much as we could for the first few weeks.  We celebrated July 4 together and then packed up and went to Montgomery, Texas, for some lake time.  Unfortunately, it started raining our first afternoon there and kept on for the entire week!  We were able to sneak in a little time out on the boat, though. 

Luke took his job of driving the boat very seriously.  

We got rained out on Sunday, just as we were picking up the jet ski we rented.  So, we packed it all in and went back to the condo to watch movies and rest.  The next morning, we got back out on the lake with the boat and the jet ski for about an hour and a half.  Luke loved the jet ski, especially going fast!

 Jackson waving to his mom and dad out on the jet ski:

Summer 2012

This year we went straight to Wisconsin from Caracas. Well, we went to Chicago, rented a car, drove to Wisconsin, bought camping stuff, camped for 3 days, stored the stuff with Jason's brother, drove back to Chicago for a wedding, flew to Minneapolis for the Aerosmith concert, flew back to Chicago the next day, visited Jason's aunt and uncle there, drove back to Wisconsin to visit Aunt Liz and Uncle Bob, and finally, flew to Texas!  Whew.  We loved our trip up north, but we were ready to light in one place and stay there a while!

Once in Texas, we were all three content to just hang at my parents' house for a while.  Luke went to a YMCA basketball camp, Mom and I shopped (a lot! We're redoing her craft room.), Jason took care of business and chilled.  More pictures to follow!